Ah, the joys of "economy."

So for some reason no longer clear to me, we decided to buy a washing machine secondhand, to replace my own secondhand machine that didn't really want to agitate during the rinse cycle--it had gotten so I'd have to time it to get in there and set it back to wash, with no soap. A pain...so we fixed it.

The new secondhand machine, however, appears to have a problem with the bolt that holds the agitator in place firmly...theoretically resulting in, well, agitation. Y'know, what you need to clean your clothes, then get the soap out. Once again, it's decided to cease all agitation. SO glad we saved $100 or so on a machine that works worse than my old one...

You have our luck as well, get past the warranty period and it wants to break down. For us, either something breaks right away or it lasts a long, long time. I hope the ppl you got it from will offer something in way of compensation or replacement.

Once upon a time in the 60s I read a couple of books that warped my poor wee brain--"Champagne Living on a Beer Budget," and another even more stringent and starry-eyed one, "How to Live on Nothing." I LOVED that book!

Coupled with Walden and various Thomas Merton and Euell Gibbons wild-foods tomes, I really got into that concept!

Unfortunately that's what also led to the huge mess in the attic--"I might USE that scrap of tattered bedspread sometime, I can DO something with that old carpet, omigod, I can't throw that away, I could be even poorer!" Yeah, hee-hee, repurposing! LOTS of it...

I finally threw out the black-painted gallon plastic jugs that were intended to store heat in the attic in the winter...I think...

i still have to physically force myself to toss old sheets, old papers, etc. the current trend of mixed media art doesn't help any--"hey--i can USE that old receipt!" it is a blessing and a curse, as i mutter to myself, to be able to "see" uses in everything.

i have to remind myself that there is no need to save old sheet to line quilts, any more. new batting types don't leak through like they used to. i don't have to reuse that old bedpad as batting, either. no, poly sheets don't need to be used as anything but rags. immigrant/depression era parental units sealed my fate, i think. it should be a huge lesson to me, as i continue to clean out the folk's place. i just have to grit my teeth, dig in, and toss! i have to continue the project here, and just not let up.

and i still have my copy of "stalking the high bush cranberry". the old hippie still lives in the aging body ...too bad she would look silly in hip huggers and bell bottoms, now. (but she still burns incense, and dances barefoot in the grass when no one's looking)

Joseph pointed out that even if I DID get back into quilting, which I did for my first book, Quiltwear, that it was unlikely I'd want to use the fabrics I had in all those little color-coordinated bags. They WEREN'T exactly my current taste. ;-)

I still have The Hassle Free Make Your Own Clothes book--I really need to start listing on eBay again! And of course all the organic gardening books are still here...AND the Euell Gibbons books. Of course now that Joseph's here, we have TWO copies of those. ;-)

Good luck with the tossing...we'll just have to support eachother in this painful endeavor!